Other trait combos for civ leaders

[VSarius]

wow you think CRE is meh??? CRE is ridiculously powerful if you share borders with a few civs. I admit it's a lot less useful if you find yourself isolated or squeezed into a peninsula or something, otherwise it's amazing. I think SPI and PRO are tied for the worst trait, and NO WHERE near PHI/EXP. Then again, I don't play Civ spreadsheet style. I guess if you're still playing the retail version of BTS on deity, SPI might be useful, as you said, for diplomacy. I play Kmod, random personalities, so I don't know what any AI is going to do.

It depends on how you settle really, which is map dependent and difficulty dependent. On Deity where you space your cities close to your capitol because maintenance costs are ridiculous, having your full-cross is very likely. When you set-up far flung blocker cities, having your full-cross is less guaranteed so CRE has an additional + to it. For the games I play, CRE essentially means -30h per city and fast Libraries, being essentially assured my full-cross early game, doesn't enter the equation.

I haven't played K-Mod and largely from what I understand exploiting it's AI is significantly harder (Random personalities doesn't really make a huge impact, it's pretty easy to figure out what leader has what AI) so SPI loses the vast majority of it's power. If diplomatic shenanigans don't enter the equation, SPI saves you some hammers and anarchy turns, hardly even close to as strong as PHI/EXP, if diplomacy is exploitable, it's on par, just because of how powerful diplomacy is.

 

[noto2]

Well perhaps I could try to figure out which leader had which AI but I don't want to bother, that would defeat the purpose. Of course, Toku is a dead giveaway but that's the only one who is that obvious. I don't want to be able to predict AI behaviour. Also, playing Kmod makes the game much more difficult. I like that Kmod/random personalities is incredibly difficult on monarch and basically impossible on emperor. I like that kind of difficulty more than the base game on deity. The reason is because I find the latter example far too limiting. On deity, for example, even if you're playing a strong economic leader, say Darius, with the same amount of land as an AI playing, say Toku, Toku will still be able to out tech and out produce you. On deity, many factors in the game become irrelevant and you have to use the same few strategies over and over again to win, you need to follow the same damn research path and bulb the same techs every game, I think that's boring.

 

[Gregonar]

I view industrious, financial, and philosophical as the three active economic traits. Expansive and Organized could be considered economic, but they are fairly passive in nature. Exploiting IND is fairly obvious. Exploiting FIN is somewhat obvious as well - you want to work a lot of cottages early or perhaps coastal cities. Exploiting PHI often involves getting more than one GP farm up and running ASAP but the trait is fairly flexible. You might run a lot of cottages and do a lot of bulbing and/or golden ages, or you might be building a lot of academies, or you might even be mass settling in a super science city.

I just don't see exploiting FIN and PHI to 100% potential at the same time. You really need more than one GP farm to make use of PHI and how can you be doing that AND working cottages early in the game? Don't get me wrong, Elizabeth is a total powerhouse leader... I'm just saying that Pacal can rival her even though, on its own, PHI is probably a stronger trait than EXP. It's that Pacal's UB has synergy with his traits. EXP supports FIN very well. Or Victoria is another example I gave - she can REX hard and work tons of cottages early. Thus, Victoria is just as strong a leader as Elizabeth even though, on its own, IMP probably isn't as strong of a trait as PHI.

But don't get me wrong, I'm not picking on the PHI trait, nor am I saying Elizabeth is weak, she's not at all.

I generally agree. I think that Pacal/Maya is possibly the strongest civ in the game just because how everything fits together. EXP is a very powerful trait if only because of the cheaper workers and granaries. The +2 Health gives me the option of chopping more trees than I would otherwise because I have one less thing to consider. The UU, though mediocre, is the only unit in the game that grants immunity to the common chariot rush in MP games. The UB gives me the option of going for a lot of classical war/econ techs before the rather useless Monarchy path. FIN speaks for itself generally.

I find that Elizabeth's traits to be a bit of an overkill. Neither FIN nor PHI helps much in the all important early game, nor do England's UU or UB. Without that support, it is hard to take the economic hit when I switch a city or two to specialists. The same can be said about switch a couple of cities to cottages. Pacal however....

 

[VSarius]

Wait, what. How does FIN not have an early-game benefit, unless you start off-coast and don't tech Pottery. A single riverside cottage, 1pop, is worth 3 commerce. 4 commerce in 10t. FIN is a trait that allows you a tech lead early on and then preserves it, as well as allowing easier recovery from REX/Warring. PHI+FINs greatest synergy is in being assured Liberalism, and the super-early Academy.

As for Maya, excluding Inca, I am inclined to agree.

 

[Gregonar]

You really should not be working cottages until your REX/rush phase is complete. That's the early game I'm talking about. A 1-pop city working a cottage when you're at only 2-3 cities is silly.

Also, I don't get what the big deal is about PHI. You get nothing from it before you can build libraries, that is, after the most important EARLY phase. Its biggest boost is very short lived--basically before a non-PHI player can setup a NE city. During that phase, you get a couple of extra GPs, and maybe 4-5 extra GPs for the whole game. The 100% GPP boost is misleading, because you also have to consider the fact that the cost for each GP increases dramatically. After everyone has NE setup, you're only mathematically getting a 50% boost, which leads at best, a 20-25% increase in the number of GPs you'd get. Not a game changer unlike any of the powerful early game traits.

 

[noto2]

Well, let's be fair though, if I get 4 GP in the span of time it takes you to get 2, I have a fairly big advantage, I'll be bulbing ahead in tech and trading techs to stay the tech leader. Once I get to education the PHI boost drops off but then I have cheap unis to carry my tech advantage. I think PHI's power is its flexibility. FIN is great when you have tons of grasslands to improve, but what do you do when you get boxed in with brown land? FIN does nothing for you in that situation. Many traits are like that... like playing an AGG leader but not being able to fight anyone until cannons/grens, at that point the AGG trait is not very significant.

But with PHI you have many options. You can use it as an early-mid game tech booster to keep yourself ahead in tech for a military advantage. You can use it for gold, popping wonders, building acadamies, etc, for an overall economic boost, you can run a settled specialist economy which can be insanely powerful, you can run a loooooong golden age at a key point in the game, and the cheap universities can help get an early Oxford, which is very useful for any games going late.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I just want to say thank you to most of you for making this thread read-worthy after all. It got off to a pretty rough start, but it has become quite interesting. Keep it up.

 

[Gregonar]

Well, let's be fair though, if I get 4 GP in the span of time it takes you to get 2, I have a fairly big advantage

Review this:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/gp_points.php

You're not getting the scaling....assuming normal speed, 300 GPPs gets regular leaders 2 GPs, that 600 gets a PHI leader 3 GPs. Assuming neither of us builds NE, by the time I get 5 GPs, the PHI leader would have 7. If both START with an NE built, then the PHI leader would only have 50% more GPs than a regular leader, and the trait advantage drops off even more.

Golden Age costs ALSO scales...it's generally easy enough to get the GPs for 2 GAs in a game. having a couple of GPs to spare does not equal to a 3rd GA--you would need three. If you want GAs, there are other traits that can get you to MUSIC, ECONOMICS, or PHYSICS faster. You can also bum rush the MoM which essentially turns 2 GAs into 3....just some things for comparison, you know?

One thing I'll say for PHI: you get your FIRST GP in half the time. That's about it.

I'd like to see a side by side trial of a 'strong' PHI leader like Peter or Elizabeth vs fast starters like Pacal or Joao, on identical starts. Personally, I've had a miserable time playing PHI leaders, in SP or MP.

As for cheap universities, usually, by the time I'm building them, the hammers that PHI saves me don't really matter much.

 

[noto2]

Review this:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/gp_points.php

You're not getting the scaling....

Semantics, semantics... a PHI leader will pop a 4th GP before a non-PHI leader will pop their 3rd, therefore he will have 4 GP while the non PHI leader has only popped 2, that is what I meant.

600 GPP gets you a 3rd GP, 1000 gets you your 4th, so a PHI leader will have 1000 GPP and a 4th GP while the non PHI leader is at 500 GP and still working on his 3rd.

Everything in Civ is about speed. Getting that GM on turn 90 instead of turn 125 is a huge difference. Completing the GLibrary 3 turns before your opponent is a huge difference. Getting to liberalism 10 turns earlier than your opponent makes a huge difference. Getting to rifling and nationalism 15 turns before your opponent is a huge difference.

 

[VSarius]

Review this:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/gp_points.php

You're not getting the scaling....assuming normal speed, 300 GPPs gets regular leaders 2 GPs, that 600 gets a PHI leader 3 GPs. Assuming neither of us builds NE, by the time I get 5 GPs, the PHI leader would have 7. If both START with an NE built, then the PHI leader would only have 50% more GPs than a regular leader, and the trait advantage drops off even more.

Golden Age costs ALSO scales...it's generally easy enough to get the GPs for 2 GAs in a game. having a couple of GPs to spare does not equal to a 3rd GA--you would need three. If you want GAs, there are other traits that can get you to MUSIC, ECONOMICS, or PHYSICS faster. You can also bum rush the MoM which essentially turns 2 GAs into 3....just some things for comparison, you know?

One thing I'll say for PHI: you get your FIRST GP in half the time. That's about it.

I'd like to see a side by side trial of a 'strong' PHI leader like Peter or Elizabeth vs fast starters like Pacal or Joao, on identical starts. Personally, I've had a miserable time playing PHI leaders, in SP or MP.

As for cheap universities, usually, by the time I'm building them, the hammers that PHI saves me don't really matter much.

Again, we have to assume what difficulty level we are talking about. Joao is a strong leader, but he drops off tremendously on Deity. You simply cannot REX in most cases, with the exclusion of Commerce heavy starts, in other words, HoF-starts. EXP is a tremendously powerful trait, and Pacal is a top 5 leader, because he both has a strong growth curve, and he actually utilizes that fast growth to compound a tech lead with FIN. PHIs strength is again, a secure Liberalism, and an early Academy. Anyone worth his salt knows how strong Liberalism, and denying Liberalism is, an early Academy can be either somewhat strong, or hilariously strong given a commerce heavy capitol. Having it up sooner cements a tech lead (Given smart trading, in No Tech Trade games, Elizabeth is the best leader).

Regarding working cottages during a REX phase, you work a food tile, and cottages to support the REX. And then you grow unto cottages to take advantage of the gobbled land, again, by REX I am assuming 10-11 cities settled relatively early. Not 4-5. 4-5 is just standard expansion, REX is something completely different, and I have no clue how you plan to afford a 11 city REX even on Emperor without either a solid distribution of commerce tiles, FIN coasts, cottages, or GLH.